[erlang-questions] Erlang and bbcode

[Joe Armstrong]

On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 12:34 AM, Richard O'Keefe <ok@REDACTED> wrote:
> I wonder if other people are getting the same take-home lesson from bbcode
> that I am?  It's
>
>  - we've had adequate notations for describing syntax since
>    1960, so why, more than 50 years later, are we using notations
>    presented in an informal and incomplete way?
>
>  - we've known about the importance of testing for nearly as long,
>    so why, in the 21st century, are things like Markdown and BBcode
>    promulgated without a common set of test cases?
>

But tests are used to see if the implementation corresponds to the
specification.
Since they have no specification, their can't really be any tests.

Or worse, in the absence of a specification, the tests *become* the
specification.

Thus if the first implementation of XXX was stupid all re-implementations
would also have to be stupid (as is the case)

/Joe

>